I’m a citizen disappointed by the shallowness of our media and lack of honest examination of today’s deeper challenges. Such as coming to grips with what society has done to our Earth’s biosphere (life support system). I realize no one likes bad news, but faith-based denial isn’t going to do our children any good either.
~ ~ ~ Thus I’ve taken to writing what I'd like to see more of and to sharing selected writings of others.
~ ~ ~ feel free to copy and pass along any of the following.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

“Let The Free Market Address Conservation” Say What?

“Let The Free Market Address Conservation” the headline proclaimed. Say what? Leave the “free market” alone to address our environmental crisis as it sees fit? You mean the “free market” that sent USA manufacturing jobs overseas, effectively gutting the future of America’s middle class? The “free market” that is bulldozing mountain after mountain in the Appalachians only to fill in valley after productive valley with rubble and poisonous tailings?

The same “free market” dedicated to maximizing profits while minimizing liabilities by making them someone else’s problem or ignoring them? The “free market” that doesn’t plan for long term maintenance as reflected in the sorry state of America’s infrastructure of bridges, water treatment facilities, etc.? The “free market” that is cutting social programs to the bone, while continuing its faith-based diplomacy by bombs and an ever increasing military/industrial/political complex?

The “free market” that establishes “think tanks” such as Marshall Institute, Heartland Institute, SPPI, and more? Who have developed the art of deception and mass media propaganda to the level that with smoke and mirrors they can make a tiny clique of politically motivated contrarians seem like “half the scientific community” to gullible folks - while broadcasting dishonest spins on the science that a serious high school science class could drive through.

“Free market” is an Orwellian triumph of words over substance. Where’s the freedom when 2% of the richest adults in the world own more than half of all wealth and when half the world’s population owns barely 1% of all wealth?

To imagine that our “free market” leaders, or forces, care one fig about the welfare of future generations is to ignore a couple hundred years worth of human history. The “free market” may be excellent at extracting and consuming - but sustaining something for future generations is simply not within it’s bubble of awareness, let alone concern.